


God And Sinners Reconciled

by test_kard_girl



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Just happens to be Christmas, M/M, Not even Christmas fluff, seasonal phone calls about imminent extremist activities, stupid mutant husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2852846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/test_kard_girl/pseuds/test_kard_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post <i>Days Of Future Past</i>. Erik gives Charles a heads-up on any pre-holiday terrorist activity; just in case flying the X-Jet across the Atlantic messes with his Christmas dinner schedule.<br/>Seriously though: not even fluff; Just seasonal awkwardness and vague sexual tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God And Sinners Reconciled

_Milan, Christmas Eve, 1978_

"Charles."  
His name trips more easily from his tongue than any other ever has. Erik twists around, leaning his head back until it meets cool glass and he closes his eyes:  
"How are you?"  
At the other end of the line, Charles' sigh makes the airwaves rattle.  
"...Don't pretend niceties Erik." He chastises, weariness and anger all stitched together. "What do you want?"  
Erik twines the ringleted steel of the phone cable around his hand; lets the arch of an eyebrow break the frown lines across his forehead:  
"I'm not allowed to call an old friend?"  
" _Erik_."  
His fingers tighten, nails cutting into his palm: "I'm in Milan."  
Perhaps he images the small catch in Charles' breathing; the shiver.  
(Perhaps he has spent far too much time altogether imagining these things.)  
"...So?"  
"Tomorrow they'll report it as an attack; a kidnapping." Erik explains, and this part is easy: twisted truths that slip between his teeth. He opens his eyes again to glower at the dented square of ceiling above him, the teenager loitering outside the phone box door, who catches his look and instantly darts away again. He passes his tongue over his lips. "...It isn't any of those things."  
This time, Charles' sigh is unambiguous.  
"...What is it then?"  
"Intelligence gathering."  
"By which you mean gathering intelligence from the inside of some poor sod's skull and leaving the unfortunate individual a mindless corpse?"  
Erik considers his answer. He'd like to defend their methods, but he knows Charles well enough to know _he'll_  never understand them, no matter the pretty words he uses.  
"You were playing with memories long before I was darling."  
All he gets in return for _that_ is the soft sound of Charles' lips thinning in annoyance.  
"That it? You done?" He snaps, and Erik imagines his forehead pressed against the back of his hand pressed against his study wall and allows himself a breath of a laugh.  
Of course, he isn't-- ' _done_ '. He imagines he'll never be 'done' with Charles Xavier and, as much as it terrifies him and as much as it may be better any other way, he hopes to Christ Charles will never be truly 'done' with him.  
Erik smiles a tiny smile:  
"I asked how you were."  
The glass walls make the silence thick and soft around him. The only sound he can hear is the faint sweet-wrapper crackle of Charles' breath at the other end of the phone line.  
"I'm alive, aren't I?" He offers eventually, regret grazing his consonants. "I'm fine. It's all fine."  
"The school?"  
"I'm not telling you about the school, Erik."  
Which he expected of course. He would be offended at the other man's distrust if it weren't so nakedly legitimate.  
"Okay."  
"...Okay."  
The teenager is back outside the phone-box, hands stuffed in his pockets, too-white sneakers tracing spirals in the dusting of snow on the pavement of the Via Solferino. But his gait is different now; his eyes far, far too attentive. Erik holds up a finger: _one minute_.  
He could stay on the line as long as he liked of course: buggering the meter in a payphone is, quite literally, small change to him. But he contents himself with only a handful more silent seconds, listening to Charles cozied up in his sprawling mansion in Westchester on Christmas Eve not hanging up on him.  
"...Mila--?"  
The payphone pings and rattles as Erik drops it unceremoniously back into its cradle.


End file.
